


Please Keep Smiling

by AmberJeans



Series: Past The Present [5]
Category: Shadowrun: Hong Kong
Genre: Emotional, Fluff, Gen, Hurt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:21:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23638981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmberJeans/pseuds/AmberJeans
Summary: Funny thing about the past; it's not always behind us. Sometimes it can be there right beside us, just waiting for us to set it free.“A great many things have happened. I suspect, since you are contacting me, that you are at least aware of some of it.” She had to be; I’d made sure to obtain a burner. One I’d used only a few times. Doubtless there was someone around willing to turn in my info. Possibly the Whompan elders; I’d known it was a mistake to leave them alive.
Relationships: Gaichu (Shadowrun)/ Sayuri (Shadowrun)
Series: Past The Present [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1303652
Comments: 4
Kudos: 5





	Please Keep Smiling

**Author's Note:**

> Emotional piece yet again.  
> It came over me to give some context and flesh out a flesh-eater. :D

My mediation is broken by a soft buzzing that fills the small room. My commlink. I felt the bumps its screen produced to ID the caller in braille and my eyes flew open. For all the good that will ever do. 

I answer the call. “Hello Sayuri. It has been some time since we last spoke.” I cannot help the slight pause in my words. Sayuri… how long had it been?

“Your voice...” Her own gentle voice is hushed, and stunned, as if she were afraid of what she willingly asked for. I can almost  _ hear  _ her hand covering her mouth as she says my old name. “...your voice, it sounds so coarse. It  _ has _ been a while since we spoke -years in fact- but you sound ill. Is everything alright?” I suspected, from her sound, that the years had at least been kind to her. As I’d hoped they would be.

“A great many things have happened. I suspect, since you are contacting me, that you are at least aware of some of it.” She had to be; I’d made sure to obtain a burner. One I’d used only a few times. Doubtless there was someone around willing to turn in my info. Possibly the Whompan elders; I’d known it was a mistake to leave them alive.

Her voice wavered. “Yes I was… aware of your joining Renkaku.” A subtle inflection injected into her tone. “I will admit to not being surprised that you made Red Samurai. You were always so fierce, so passionate; and yet smart and focused, with a smile brighter than the sun.” 

I can’t help but smile at the way she recalls me -the distant me- so fondly. “That was quite some time ago.”

“When I heard that you’d been sent against Shiawase in Osaka I’d feared the worst. There were reports of a ghoul’s nest that hadn’t been properly cleared and I was afraid…” Her voice quivers as she leaves that part hanging. 

I chuckled; it was so very like her to have me fill in the blanks. “You seem to be very well informed for another Renkaku agent. To answer your hidden question, yes my team was unfortunate enough to cross paths with the ghouls.”

“You are not the only one who looked to serve the Red Samurai, _Saru_.” I can hear the pride in her voice. “So, you came across those ghouls…? Then does this mean-”

“-that anything you might have heard from Renkaku about my glorious death was greatly exaggerated. We were overrun in the ghoul’s nest and I didn’t make it out of there unscathed.”

There was a momentary pause in her voice; seconds, turned into minutes; minutes, seemingly into hours. “You’re… a ghoul now.” she said suddenly,  _ finally,  _ her voice heavy with the eternity of silence we had both endured.

“I am.” There was no point in hiding the truth from her. “I was bitten in the ensuing scuffle. I saw no reason to commit seppuku as Renkaku doctrine dictated, since I was still in command of my facilities. My former team disagreed and we fought before I managed to escape.”

“It was said that you had died a hero’s death in that ghoul’s nest, as befitted one of Renkaku’s Red Samurai.” She scoffed. “I did not believe it; the tenacious young man I met at the Jizo would not be so easily beaten by mere ghouls. But Saru, why did you not do the honorable thing? You know the stain of dishonor will not leave your team while you still live!”

It was my turn to laugh. “My  _ former  _ team; I distinctly recall being clear on that point.” The bark of laughter I let out was dark and hollow. “I also recall mentioning that I still retained my cognitive functions. Why should I submit myself to an  _ honorable _ end, as you put it, when I could still be of service?”

“Because it was just!” Her voice rose a full octave, lending it a presumptuous tone that was equal parts infuriating and pitiful. “We are humanity’s purest, its best; to debase ourselves would disgrace us. Our comrades. Our company. Our country. We’re to never suffer the unclean!”

Anger like I had never felt before flared up within me. “So I should have just let them kill me? Is that what you wanted to hear, Sayuri?” I realised I had roared, as my own voice echoed back from the walls of my little room. 

“N-no! That is not what I- I could never want that for you!”

“Never suffer the unclean; I am acutely familiar with the rhetoric. Am I not japanese by birth? By this logic, am I not one of the elites simply for having the fortune to be born an imperial? Why should a condition that was forced on me strip me of my birthright?”

“..N-no.” Again, her voice was closed off to me, but at the same time so full of melancholy.“Please understand Saru. For all Imperials, for both of us, this is simply the way that things are!” “My former team was of the same mind as you are.” I shouted into the commlink. “Despite my protests, they too thought it better if I was dead. They paid me no mind when I tried to explain myself and forced my hand.”

“You attacked them…!”

“ _ They attacked me!”  _ I could feel my teeth grinding. “And I fled at first; the retaliation didn’t happen until much later.”

“They will chase you to the ends of the earth.”

“I know. They cornered me in Shanghai as I was trying to leave for a cure and forced my hand in a crowded subway. I barely escaped with my life; the same could not be said for some of my team.” My team. A sliver of regret ran through my words, in spite of myself. A sliver of regret that I just as easily squashed within myself; what’s done was done.

“...Oh.” Contrition like barbed wire tore at her words. “I am so sorry Saru. I truly am.” She went silent for a bit before gasping. “Your smile. Saru! Ghouls are blind; surely you can… can you no longer see your smile Saru?”

“I am afraid that I have more pressing concerns than the sudden loss of my smile.” I couldn’t help the contempt that crept into my words. “Being hated and hunted for something beyond your control tends to force one to reassess what is and isn’t important to them. And I no longer go by Saru any longer; the man with that name died to ghouls. My name is now Gaichu-”

“ _ Don’t call yourself that! _ ” I must admit, I was shocked by the fire in her voice. “That is blasphemous insult; far beneath a man such as you! Do not demean yourself by taking the name of a monster!”

I sighed. “Sayuri...” Taking a deep breath I continued. “Sayuri, the Red Samurai named Saru is dead. I am Gaichu now, and it is a name I wear with pride.” 

“Saru, I-” There’s a slight gasp on her end followed by a long silence. When she speaks again it’s hushed and hurried. “They are surely tracing my call. If we should never see each other again, for whatever reason, please... keep smiling.”

“I will… try, Sayuri. Thank you for taking the risk to speak to one such as myself. It was… pleasant to speak to you again.” 

“Goodbye… Gaichu.” And with that she hung up.

_ Please keep smiling.  _ I turned, as if to face a mirror I knew I did not have and could not see. _You make it sound so easy.  
_

Outside the doors I hear the slow and steady throbbing of an athlete’s heartbeat. Light feet stepped gently on the metal walkway that led to my room. A subtle knocking on my door.

“Gaichu it's Kris. Mind if I come in?”

I turn to the door and invite her in with a smile. That I can only hope is worthy of Sayuri’s faith in me. And as I hear the door open, I push the thoughts of her into the back of my mind, where the Shadows cannot claim her like they have claimed everything else.


End file.
